Hamas and Iran had moved closer to each other this year, but those ties are being stretched by the bloody civil war in Syria — especially with the horrible scenes that emerged earlier this month from Aleppo, the former rebel stronghold.

Hamas, a Sunni fundamentalist movement, has always differed from Iran on the Syrian civil war. Hamas sympathizes with the Syrian rebels in their revolt against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad — who is Iran's main ally in the region. Yet Iran has supported Hamas financially in the Palestinian struggle against Israel. 

The balance was already precarious and the tipping point came in mid-December with the deaths and displacement of thousands of Aleppo inhabitants due to Syrian and Russian shelling and operations by Iran and Hezbollah. On Dec. 14, Hamas issued a scathing statement condemning the "genocide" of Syrian citizens, but without naming the Syrian government. Hamas called for immediate action to halt the massacres in Aleppo and rescue those civilians still alive.

Iran's response to Hamas' statement was equally strong.